PART TWO
Praise God we have been given this wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit. One of the reasons He has been given to us is to show us things to come, for we are to be a prophetic people.
“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” John 16:13
So often we think that this ‘showing us things’ is only to do with having words of knowledge for people and glimpses into the future, which they are, but there is a far more powerful truths involved here. Yes, the Spirit does want to show us what lies ahead, but it’s more than that. The Spirit wants to help us focus on and see what is going to be fully revealed in us one day. We have a wonderful inheritance in Christ that He wants to show us now and not just when we get to Heaven. In seeing we can be changed forever. He wants to show us that we are indeed co-heirs with Christ and that we have not only been raised up with Him, but we are seated with Him now in Heavenly Places. We have all these things ‘now’ by faith. We have all that He is and all that He has, its been given to us freely by His amazing grace. We can read these truths and because they are just too hard to grasp, put them in the too hard basket.
It’s only by the unveiling of the Holy Spirit that we can get our head around this amazing revelation. It’s all coming up ahead for the ‘Overcomers,’ but can be realised now as the Spirit opens our eyes. As the Spirit lets us see ahead to the coming of the Lord and the glorious inheritance that is ours in Christ we can have a measure of change in the now.
“In the same way, we can see and understand only a little about God now, as if we were peering at his reflection in a poor mirror; but someday we are going to see him in his completeness, face-to-face. Now all that I know is hazy and blurred, but then I will see everything clearly, just as clearly as God sees into my heart right now.” 1 Corinthians 13:12
One day we will see everything clearly, but with the Holy Spirit’s help we can see things now if we are focused. He wants to show us the powers of the age to come and we can taste of it in the present if we believe. Enoch the 7th from Adam saw the coming of the Lord far in the future and ended up experiencing his own personal translation way back then, for he was taken and didn’t taste death. He tasted of the future and brought it into his day. Seeing is very powerful.
“who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age.” Hebrews 6:5
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2
I know that there is a marvelous change coming for us all, and we will receive new bodies. But the principle still applies that when we see Jesus as He is we shall be changed to be like Him. This still works to some extent in the here and now. As we see Jesus as He is now - glorified, we can experience a measure of change. It tells us that in 1 Corinthians 3:18, that we are changed from one level of glory to another as we behold Him.
How you see Jesus by faith can affect you in the here and now. You may not actually see Him literally, but can understand who He is through the written word. It’s having an ‘aha’ moment, an “I see,” that changes everything. Do you see Him as a strict and hard teacher or do you see Him as a merciful Heavenly Father full of grace? How you see Him affects your life in the here and now. I know as Christians we will one day understand this all in Heaven but God wants us to see it now. If you don’t see Him as your Healer now, then there is little chance you will experience that much healing in your life in the here and now. I see Him as my Healer, my Doctor and my Medicine. Exodus 15:26 says that “I am the Lord that heals you.” In Hebrew the word heals is ‘rapha’ and means “medicine, healing, doctor.” If He could be all that under the Old Covenant to His people then how much more under the New?
“I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you." Exodus 15:26
Being joined to Christ by faith brings with it the privilege of inheriting all He is and all that He has. It just seems too good to be true. But as Abraham and Paul said “I believe God.” Mary said that she believed God that it would be as He said, even though she couldn’t get her head around a virgin birth.
“And since we are his true children, we qualify to share all his treasures, for indeed, we are heirs of God himself. And since we are joined to Christ, we also inherit all that he is and all that he has. We will experience being co-glorified with him provided that we accept his sufferings as our own.” Romans 8:17
If we were ‘co-crucified’ with Him so shall we be ‘co-glorified’ with Him. It’s a mind blowing revelation, just too good to be true material. It has to be a God thing for it’s far beyond our human thinking. Praise God for the blood of Jesus that cleans us from sin and prepared us for such blessings.
As we get closer to the Lord’s return it says that our light (revelation) will get brighter and brighter. It’s like the rising of the dawn with the light of day getting stronger and stronger. Our understanding in these days will expand until finally we see Him face to face. More and more shining and getting brighter and brighter until the full light of day.
“The path of the righteous is like the morning sun,” Prov 4:18
The Holy Spirit shows us things to come. He can show us the powers of the age that is to come and through our prayers we can bring a blessing into our present day. Don’t limit God. It won’t happen if we are just half hearted about it, for we need to be fully focused. That’s why the Devil is working overtime to get our eyes off Jesus and facing in the wrong direction. Only thinking about Him and the things of heaven once in a while doesn’t have much effect on our lives for good. The Devil’s favourite distraction is to get us to focus on our own bodies all the time instead of Christ’s body.
Peter said that grace and peace will be multiplied unto us at the revelation of Jesus. The word revelation means ‘unveiling’. At the unveiling of Jesus. The more the Spirit unveils Jesus to us the more grace and peace will be multiplied to us. Again it’s so important to see.
“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,” 2 Peter 1:2
The more you ‘know’ (and have those ‘I see’ moments,) the more grace and peace will be multiplied to you. The word ‘peace’ here even includes our prosperity.
I think the Lord has been saying to me that He could have taken these symptoms away from me right away, but I needed to resist them. To love not my life, but to love His life. Love not my life even to the death. To love Him more than my life. In giving one’s attention to our problems, in a sense we can end up loving the problems more than Jesus. To love Him more than our lives and our pain is hard, but the process is life changing. I love what it says in the message bible about what should happen when God moves into our lives.
“But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!” Romans 8:9-11 message
If we really believed what is written here in this portion of scripture it would revolutionise our lives. Really believing the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us is a wonder to behold.
David said in Psalm 27:4 that he wanted to find the sweet loveliness of His face. To be filled with awe, beholding His glory and grace.
“Here’s the one thing I crave from God, the one thing I seek above all else: I want the privilege of living with him every moment in his house, finding the sweet loveliness of his face, filled with awe, delighting in his glory and grace. I want to live my life so close to him that he takes pleasure in my every prayer.” Psalm 27:4 TPT
It’s hard to take your eyes off pain and decide to worship Him in the midst of it. Funny, but so often the pain can go away when your vision of Jesus becomes greater than the pain.
As an encouragement to keep your eyes on Jesus we have promises like this in Psalm 91.
“Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.” Psalm 91:14.
The key is to set your love upon Him. Set your gaze on Him, like setting it in concrete. He promises to deliver you out of the situation we are in, if we set our love on Him. The Devil doesn’t want you to gaze on Him and be changed. He wants you to look at your problem and be overwhelmed by it.
David said in Psalm 16 that God will not leave our souls in hell (in this unpleasant situation.) This time will pass, for God knows exactly when He’s finished working on us and to end the trial. It also gives us in this Psalm the admonishment to ‘set’ the Lord always before us.
“I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.” Psalm 16:8
“I am always thinking of the Lord; and because he is so near, I never need to stumble or fall.” TLB
Paul gloried in his infirmity so that the power of God would rest upon Him. I think that when we praise God in our pain there is resting upon us an anointing to ‘know Him’ and His ways. He responds to this type of attitude with power.
“But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
In 2 Corinthians 4 it speaks of all sorts of trials coming our way as we serve God, like persecution and trouble. At this moment time there may not be much persecution, but the Devil is still attacking us in lots of other ways, for instance; with pain and suffering. Paul goes on to say that we are always carrying the dying of the Lord Jesus in our bodies. But He doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say that the attack on us is so that the Life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal bodies.
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-12
In verse 11 it says that ‘death’ works in us so that life might work in others. We have a choice to major on the death working in us or believing for His life to be manifest in us. We have the choice to take our eyes off what the Devil is doing and look at what the Holy Spirit is doing in us.
This process is like physical exercise. You grow as you push against pressure, not when there is little resistance.
We need to realise what is going on in our lives, for ignorance is not bliss. The Lord’s will is for us to gaze upon His face and see His glory. In so doing we will be changed. The Devil however, is trying to stop us from doing this with all sorts of distractions. Be honest, when as the last time you managed to get through the day praising God and keeping your eyes on Jesus. For so many of us we are constantly looking in the wrong direction taken up with the cares of this life. Life is full of knee jerk reactions blown about by circumstances, feelings and pressure. Yes, we will still get to heaven but we are living far below our potential here in this life. We are meant to be walking in our inheritance, in Christ. We should be reigning in life.
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your a life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Colossians 3:1-4